Gumbo ~ An Instant Pot Recipe

We are big fans of gumbo around here. There is nothing quite like a steaming hot bowl of gumbo on a chilly winter night. Gumbo isn’t difficult to make but it takes a bit of time and attention to make the perfect pot of it. But sometimes time is short and a couple of hours of simmering just isn’t in the cards if I want dinner on the table before 9 p.m. That’s where the Instant Pot comes in.

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Gumbo ~ An Instant Pot Recipe

I decided to try making gumbo in my Instant Pot and I was very pleased with the results. The best part is that once you get it all going you don’t have keep babysitting it, stirring and making sure it isn’t sticking.

The key to a proper pot of gumbo is a good roux (combination of flour and fat). I’ve spent many an hour patiently stirring a roux in my cast iron skillet or stainless steel dutch oven. That’s why I was extremely pleased by how much easier this step was in the Instant Pot. The 7-in-1 version I have includes a sauté setting. This is what I used to make the roux and the even heating was absolutely perfect.

Once I had a peanut butter colored roux, I added the rest of the ingredients, put on the lid, let it come up to pressure and cooked for 20 minutes. After it was done I removed the lid, put it back on the sauté setting and let it simmer with the lid off for a few minutes to thicken it up a bit.

You can, of course, add other ingredients such as chicken and/or shrimp. You can make a vegetarian version by skipping the sausage and substituting vegetable broth. Experiment by adding additional veggies, if desired. Zucchini or yellow squash would be good additions.

And if you have time, make some homemade potato salad to go with it. Trust me.

I made this for dinner tonight! It is really good. I made some rice and put it over that. I would definitely recommend this recipe! I didn’t have Creole seasoning but had Cajun. So, I added a tablespoon of oregano to the Cajun (when I looked up the difference between the two, it said Creole has oregano and to just add 1 tablespoon to the Cajun seasoning).

Oh, my goodness. I can’t believe I didn’t specify that. Thank you SO much for asking. You know those U-shaped smoked sausages? They are around 12 ounces. Personally I would probably just use half for our family because we try to limit our meat intake whenever it’s something that doesn’t really need more. But you could certainly use the whole thing.